


The Adventure of the Rainbow Flutter

by Unloyal_Olio



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Case Fic, Celebrities, Comedy, Drag Queens, Football, Gambling, M/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-31
Updated: 2012-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-06 09:00:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/417092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unloyal_Olio/pseuds/Unloyal_Olio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's gay American military secret comes to town. Sherlock only pretends to find it dull.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Adventure of the Rainbow Flutter

**Author's Note:**

> The main warning is that there is some stylized violence in this.

Mrs. Hudson is out, so when there’s a knocking at the door (three raps, each louder in succession), Sherlock doesn't look up from the sixth fire he has going on the ring stand. Apparently, he’s testing for differences in regional birch ash. “Didn't ring. Knocks with far too much confidence. An old friend, either from the country or from out of the country—and since I don’t have any friends...”

John Watson goes and gets the door.

Baker Street is quiet, especially this early in the morning, but the person in front of John is dressed loudly. At first, all John sees is electric-bloody-blue, but then he takes in the curves, the small waist in the just-above-knee skirt suit, the fact that the knees are covered by lace stockings, and a thin collared neck...

“Watts, I know you think I’m pretty, but do look me in the eyes.”

Instead of looking up, John winces. He’d recognize the voice anywhere. “Sean.” 

“Oh, do play.” Sean is affecting a female, British accent. “Today, it’s Shawna.”

He looks Sean in the eyes. The man was androgynously pretty as a man, but dressed as a woman, he—she—fuck—he—is simply gorgeous. John wonders how he got the tits to look so real. “Shaw-na, why are you on my door step?”

“Can’t old friends, catch up?” Sean leans forward to kiss his check, his full lips painted apple red. John normally hates red lipstick on women. It makes them look cheap. Sean’s lips look expensive.

“We were never old friends.” Meeting like they did in Afghanistan, and well, what they did in Afghanistan... “Friends” is not the word.

“We are on Facebook.” Sean winks at him.

“Ah, and you saw the link to the blog.”

“I love the blog.”

“You’re not here to see me then.”

“Consulting Detective Sherlock Holmes.”

“Upstairs.” John doesn’t bother holding the door for the lady.

—-

Sean had first walked into his life in a crowded bar on the American base in Kabul. It was John’s first night on leave, so he’d already thrown back a few. The better part of the evening had been spent chatting up a brunette, an Air Force captain who was clearly enjoying his attention. “I like your accent, Doctor,” she’d said, but in the end it turned out to be a waste of drinks-bought.

A burly marine with a He-Man jaw line came over, and the brunette had turned her back on John to fondle the giant’s bicep.

John told himself not to care. She wasn’t as pretty as any of his past girlfriends. Also, she had a thin, elongated mole on the bottom of her left nostril. Distracting. John kept wondering why no dermatologist had ever offered a quick resolution with a scalpel. But still, he’d been tossed over. It was what sucked about the military, the male-to-female ratio. Women were spoiled for choice; Men, bollixed.

John was mourning his ego in a shot of whiskey when Sean sat down, saying, “Don’t be so put out. She’d been waiting for him to come in all night. Nothing you could have done. Sean,” he introduced himself, and held up his drink for John to clink.

“John Watson, cheers,” he said, not entirely sad for the company. By his accent, Sean was American, but then, most were here. His hair was long, though, tucked behind his ears. Not military. Intelligence. Probably a DIA posting. “You’re an analyst?”

Sean put a finger over his mouth. “You know I can’t tell you that, although you can tell me that you’re a doctor.” He pressed his hand on the top of John’s knuckle. “Using that much hand sanitizer is so drying.” He wrinkled his nose, but he didn’t take his finger away.

Men had flirted with John before, and while he wasn’t offended—he’d had far too many gay friends for that—he was a little taken back. “You know I’m not into...”

“There are three intelligent people worth talking to on my team. I’m sick of their faces, and look around this bar.” John looks around. “Besides us, do you see many opportunities for intelligent conversation?”

It was at this moment that the pool table in the corner broke into cheers, and John saw the loser good-naturedly reach into the held-out beer and pull a drippy, yellow hunk out of the glass. He ate it while the other men laughed.

“Was that cheese?” John asked.

“It’s a Belgian thing, or someone made up that it was. Either way, he still has to drink the rest of that glass. He’ll be puking in forty-five minutes.”

John didn’t think Sean was being all that fair—he knew lots of intelligent enlisted men—but then again, the man who ate the cheese-sodden beer was now bearing his weight on the pool cue like it was a cane.

Thirty-five minutes later, the cheese-eater had indeed run off to wretch out his intestines, but John barely registered it. Sean had his hand on John’s thigh, and while John was pretending not to notice, the lump in his pants sang a different song. John wished he were pissed out of his mind, so he could justify how he kept seizing on the details: how coal black Sean’s eyelashes were compared to his blond hair (mascara?) or how Sean kept biting his lips after he laughed, like he needed his teeth to lock his mouth shut.

“I need to use the loo,” John said, twisting his thigh away.

John went down the hallway that the barman pointed at, but he didn’t see a door.

“You passed it,” Sean said, coming up behind him.

Now that Sean was standing, John could take in his frame, small-boned, pretty. “Fuck.”

Sean came closer. “Do you need to go home? I didn’t think you were that drunk, but...”

John stumbled into Sean. The metal of the wall was numbing on his finger tips but Sean’s cheek was warm, smooth.

Sean asked him, “Are we doing this?”

John answered by licking the skin beneath Sean’s ear. When his mouth finally met Sean’s, his tongue burnt hot and tasted smoky from the whiskey. Sean might be taller than him, but this meant John got to grip on his long, fine hair to pull him closer. Closer.

Until a door banged open down the hall.

“Fuck,” John said, feeling the chill of the air. “I don’t do men.”

“Don’t be rude, asshole,” Sean said. “You kissed me.”

Oh, yes, he did, actually...

They ended up in John’s room, where Sean said, “I like doctors. They always know what to do with their hands and are never overly cavalier with tender membranes.” He threw a small metal tube at John.

Sean looked good bent over, gripping John’s headboard, sweat slick down his back. He looked even better with his eyes gigantic in their sockets, biting his bottom lip to stop from screaming as he came.

When John woke up the next morning, Sean was gone, but the note he left was very polite. It was a “Thank you,” along with Sean’s number.

John didn’t call, but he ran into Sean twice after that. They only ever talked, though.

\- - -

The minute they enter the flat, Sherlock looks up from his six pots of birch dust to stare first at Sean, then at John, and back to Sean again. “So here’s your gay, American military secret,” Sherlock says. “I suppose it’s unfortunate that he wasn't wearing drag at the time. Then you could have really have passed it off as genuine slip-up.” Sherlock picks up a magnifying glass to examine the closest pile of soot.

John throws himself into a chair, willing this to be over as soon as possible. Sean is still standing on the threshold, examining Sherlock with far too much interest.

“Has John mentioned me before?” Sean asks, running a finger along his red bottom lip.

“John has not,” Sherlock says.

“Why, John,” Sean says, “So our little episode changed your mind? You and he?” He points from John to Sherlock.

“We’re not together. We’re flatmates.” John sits up in his chair and asks Sherlock, “I know you want to, so get on with it. How did you know about...? Well, you know.”

Sherlock sets down the magnifying glass to stare at Sean. “As for his being male, not even a woman would have a face so clean-shaven, especially not a natural blond. Then there’s the fact that you, John, get unsettled around gay Americans—but not gay Britons. Your hands go from trembling to shaking if they’re blond. If that weren’t enough, the fact that you keep looking at his neck while sporting a half-erection is akin to you screaming ‘Sherlock, there’s an Adam’s apple hidden there, and yes, I fucked him and liked it, even though I wish I didn’t.’ Although...” Sherlock frowns, eyeing Sean’s waist. “A corset and Spanks, were both really necessary?”

John, despite his embarrassment, is still wanting to know how Sean managed the tits, but that’s, of course, far too elementary for Sherlock. And John is completely ignoring the comment about the half-erection. It’s fine if Sherlock thinks it’s because of Sean and not because of, well, the idea of... never mind.

“Oh, he is something,” Sean says, wiggling his hips before striding over to take the cushion next to Sherlock. “If I didn’t need you to find m’boyfriend, I’d be—”

“Not interested, and boring,” Sherlock says. He grabs the remote and flips on the telly.

A football match is on replay, Chelsea against Swansea. It’s a match that John had meant to catch, except that Sherlock threw a fit (which is to say, he sawed on his violin until John’s eardrums wept) when he tried to watch it yesterday. The fact that Sherlock has the telly on might as well be Sherlock’s gong-clang for John to escort his gay-military-secret out the door.

Sean crosses his legs and smiles at the screen. “That,” he says, pointing at the screen, “is the man who says he’s my boyfriend, except he in’t. My boyfriend disappeared three days ago.”

It takes John a moment to compute that Sean is pointing at Wesley Fairchild, forward for Chelsea—and the team’s rising star. “But that is Fairchild,” John says, certain. “It looks just like him.”

“But it’s not. Trust me,” Sean says, “I last saw him three days ago—whoever that is. That’s not him. It looks like him, but it in’t. I don’t know what the league is up to—but that’s not my Wesley.”

“Two days,” Sherlock says.

“What?” Sean asks.

“You last saw him two days ago. Don’t exaggerate. You had sex, and he broke up with you.”

“He didn't... Someone was threatening him. He wanted to keep me safe.”

“Who was threatening him?” Sherlock asks.

“I... I don’t know. But after he disappeared, they—whoever it was—texted me. The message told me not to go to the authorities. Do you want to see the message?” Sean holds out his phone.

“Not useful. So you came here.”

“Well, I read John’s blog, and I thought, you’re not the authorities.”

John gets the you-and-your-damn-blog side-long glance #54.

“We’ll take the case,” Sherlock says, and then he tosses the remote at John. “Make me tea. And show the spy out the door.”

—-

“Why do you think he’s a spy? He’s an analyst,” John asks after Sean has left.

“Too young, too gay, and there’s the dual citizenship.”

“Dual citizenship?”

“You didn’t miss the attempt at the accent?”

“I thought it was pretty good, considering.”

“Exactly. Native Yorkshire. And what suburban Virginian picks up a Yorkshire accent? By the feminine intonations, it was his mother who was the emigrant. So, British mother. American father. Later divorced. Divided loyalties. All of the childhood trips back and forth across the Atlantic. The three to thirteen years it would take to complete the security clearance alone rules out an “analyst” position, unless he had some rare language ability, which he doesn’t. Yes, he was recruited because of his ability to bend in any direction.”

“Lovely,” John mutters.

“What? You think you were the first straight man he’s seduced? It’s a specialty for him, although that still begs several interesting questions. He’s CIA, here on assignment as we speak, and yet is refusing to tell his handlers about his missing boyfriend. And he’s fluffing about in drag. Why?”

“You could have asked him that while he was here.”

Sherlock ignores him to go dash into his bedroom. A minute later, John hears the sounds of a box thudding on the floor, but despite the racket, Sherlock calls out, “Do you have any shin pads? Mine are moth-eaten.”

“Shin pads?”

Sherlock doesn't answer. John hears the sound of a ball rattling along the wall. John pokes his head into Sherlock’s room. Sherlock is sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of his armoire. Though he has a jersey looped over his neck, he hasn't managed to get his arms through it all the way, so his pale, firm stomach is bare. More distracting, he’s wearing violently purple knee-socks.

“Purple, really?” John asks, looking away.

Sherlock unlaces a grass-stained football boot and fits it on. “I didn't buy them for myself. Though, if I had pink, that would have been even better.”

“Do I want to know?”

“We are going to go join a league.”

“We?”

“Don’t fancy some exercise?”

“With purple and pink socks... Oh, Christ. It’s a gay league, isn’t it?”

Sherlock smiles at him. It’s that damn smile. The one with where he shows all his teeth like a schoolboy.

On most days, John can bat it off. Sherlock is annoying enough for John not to think about it. After all, how can you fancy someone who dumps soot in your morning coffee? (“What? You want to fix it? We have a tea strainer.”) Or who insults your mother on the phone? (“You sent him away to that boarding school to forget about him, so now he gets to forget about you. Also, how’s the herpes?”)

But when Sherlock smiles at John like he is now, it’s an infection—an awful, acute, deadly infection. Because the smile is half energy, a quarter excitement, and the rest some cancerous bulge of genius and beauty.

This is how John ends up, two hours later, on the football pitch with a rainbow maypole flapping its ribbons above him.

—-

Sherlock enters the match inappropriately. He head-butts a ball that’s gone flying out of bounds. And no, he can’t just head-butt the ball. John sees all the signs that Sherlock is bent on “acting” which means he flails his arms and makes a high-pitched girl-shriek as he leaps in the air.

John hopes the men in the match will see through it. Instead, the midfielder closest to the pitch line claps his hands and says, “And that is what I call giving good head.”

Along with the midfielder and the other players in proximity, Sherlock laughs.

John wants to die, die, die.

“Oh, you’re here to join us, aren't you?” the midfielder asks.

John has to fight off rolling his eyes. Yes, straight men in purple-pony socks show up at gay football leagues all the time. Sherlock, though, smiles with awkward shyness. “We tried the other league, but they were...” He shrugs diplomatically.

“Total shit!” the midfielder exclaims. “We’re so much better, but that’s no surprise. The south city league, well, they’re all in finance.”

Sherlock nods along as if the midfielder just cracked a nasty tangle of a case.

John and Sherlock end up on separate teams. This seems to be decided upon arbitrarily—John’s shirt is blue so he ends up as a defender on the “Team Smurf”—so it takes John a minute to realize that Sherlock has gotten himself placed as a forward on Fairchild’s team. Wesley Fairchild isn’t dressed in his professional football garb; instead he’s wearing a raggedy t-shirt with smiley face magic-markered on the front. Still, there’s no mistaking him. Besides the fact that he moves three-times as fast as the rest of the guys on the pitch, he’s well... incredibly fit.

Oh, and then there’s the fact that Fairchild keeps chatting up Sherlock. This doesn’t happen immediately. If anything, Fairchild scores a goal and Sherlock half-pretends not to notice. But then, in the next five minutes, Sherlock intercepts a pass. He fakes out the midfielder, and with shocking speed, runs right at John.

He looks... Well, Sherlock is normally so pale. His otherwise prominent cheekbones get camouflaged in his ghost-white skin. While striking against his black hair, the effect isn’t what John would call traditionally handsome. And yet, as Sherlock storms down the field toward John, his cheeks are flushed from running, he has a trickle of sweat on his brow, and he looks—

John doesn’t understand. The man lives off of biscuits and tea stolen from John. He’s a walking quilt of nicotine patches. And yet, this is where Sherlock with stupid stupid stupid grace shoulder-shoves John out of the way. He outruns the other defender and goes on to pound the ball right between the keeper’s outstretched arms and into the top upper left corner of the net. This is also how Fairchild takes an interest in Sherlock—and keeps taking every possible lull in the play to go over and talk to him.

John is no longer a fan of Wesley Fairchild. Unfortunately, he’s being obvious about it. His fellow defender notices. “Are you with him? I mean the tall-and-pale guy with the swimmer’s body who you showed up with?”

“Oh, um... We live together, but...”

“Got it. It’s complicated.”

“Complicated,” John agrees, happy for the label.

His teammate keeps talking. “After the match, we normally got out to Piper’s. It’s a nice pub. The music isn’t too stupid, and they have great drink specials. You should go. A good place to forget about complications,” he says, grinning, “and you know, loosen up. Have fun.” He says it naturally enough, but when he meets John’s eyes, John realizes that it’s more than a friendly offer. He’s being hit on.

The defender is a big guy. Taller than Sherlock with a dog tag tattooed on his left shoulder. John points at it. “You served?”

“I did. You?” He looks at John with even greater interest.

When time is called at the end of the match, John is still talking to his fellow defender—Rob. He was in Afghanistan too, and it’s weirdly refreshing to chat about old times. He’s laughing at something Rob said, when Sherlock appears.

Sherlock lobs a bottle of water at John. “It’s past time to go,” he says, and marches off.

“Ah, that kind of complicated,” Rob says, looking thoughtfully after Sherlock.

“Sorry, I should...” John points after Sherlock.

Rob smiles and waves farewell. John catches up to Sherlock in time to catch the cab with him. As it is, Sherlock looks like he’s considering slamming the car door in John’s face.

“What’d you find out from Fairchild?” John asks, sliding in next to him.

“You weren't just friendly with that man,” Sherlock says. “You were interested.”

“Come off. He was interesting to talk to. Now, what about Fairchild?”

“Fairchild is the genuine article; however, he has a brother, who says he’s not gay but fucks men. Kind of like you.”

“I’m... What do you want me to say? Bravo, you know I’ve slept with a man before. It’s not like I’ve ever denied it. And why do we care about Fairchild’s brother?”

“They’re twins, fraternal, but they closely resemble each other. Wesley is the talented one. His brother is smarter, but generally considered the family failure. He’s the one who your Shawna is after.”

“Not my...” John cuts off with a groan. “Where we headed?”

Sherlock lays off for the moment, turning away from John to look out the window. “We need to pop by the flat to change.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re not dressed. You’ll need a suit, shower, deodorant.”

“Me, in a suit? Just where are we going?”

Sherlock frowns. “I suppose I’ll come, but I’m not allowed at the tables, and I don’t feel like putting on some elaborate disguise.”

“The tables—you mean gambling—and why aren't you allowed?” John asks.

“Banned.”

“What did you do?”

“Won too much, too often.” And Sherlock has to turn and give that smile again.

—

When John comes out wearing a suit, Sherlock sets down his violin. He points the bow at John and says, “Spin.”

John rolls his eyes before spinning in a circle as instructed. He stops after two rotations, and that’s when he sees that’s Sherlock’s eyes are locked on his arse.

“What?” John asks. “Trousers too baggy?”

“I’d like them tighter.”

“Wait a minute, if we’re going to this casino because you think I’m going to be gay bait for whoever the target is, then you’re—”

“No.”

“No what?”

“I just like them tighter,” Sherlock says.

John’s throat goes dry. The way that Sherlock is looking at him: mouth open, finger on his chin, his tongue flexed against his front teeth. Holy fuck.

John is about to take a step toward him, a step toward who knows what, when Sherlock jerks his gaze. “We’re running late,” he says, breaking for the door. He clucks a goodbye at the door’s edge.

The door bangs behind him.

John is left to lock up and follow.

—-

In the cab, nothing seems amiss until John feels a poke against his thigh. When John looks down, there it is. Sherlock’s hand is next to his leg on the bench, and his pinkie is stretched out like a plank, poking into John’s leg.

It takes John a minute to process that Sherlock is pinkie-poking him.

John has no idea what it means, but it’s Sherlock, who never touches anyone, so it’s without a doubt deliberate. Of that John is sure. And John would simply ask, except that Sherlock is characteristically slumped toward the window, looking out.

John decides on the casual approach. “You played well, earlier. I didn’t know you’d ever played football.”

“Why wouldn’t I? It’s a game, pointless but logical.”

“You’d never mentioned.”

“My father made Mycroft and me play. I didn't put any effort into it until I realized that it pissed Mycroft off that I was better at it than him.”

Sherlock’s hand flexes and then the ring finger joins the pinkie on John’s thigh. But that’s it. His hand does nothing else. Sherlock doesn’t look at John.

John wonders if Sherlock is conducting an experiment. He wonders if he’s like the birch ash. If the ring finger is the second trial for a given hypothesis.

It’s a shock, then, when Sherlock says, “Pay the man,” and throws open the cab door.

John blinks out the window. They’re at the casino.

As soon as they’re inside, Sherlock reaches into his breast pocket, pulls out a thick wad of notes, and says, “Three thousand pounds. Now go over to blackjack tables and use it.”

John takes the money. He flips through it. The notes aren't fake. Sherlock has given him— “Three thousand pounds! You want me to gamble off three thousand pounds,” John chokes out.

“Well, you don’t have to lose it, but if you do, that’s fine. Security hasn't recognized me. If you lose it all, I’ll win it back.”

John goes over to the blackjack tables in a daze. He proceeds to lose stupendously for fifteen minutes until Sherlock yanks him away, and says, “Poker, the table with the highest blind.”

John is a little sick of Sherlock bossing him—even if Sherlock did give over a whole lot of money—so he buys a whiskey sour while he waits for a spot to open up.

When the spot does open, John plops down to the left of the dealer and is told to lay down a hundred pounds.

Well, fine then. It’s not like it’s his quid anyway.

He’s jiggling the ice in his glass and examining the cuboids’ refractions when he puts two and ten together and realizes that wild man across the table is the fraternal Fairchild prodigal.

In John’s defence, the man is loathsome. Unlike his sweet-faced brother, “Nicky,” as he announces himself, is a downright boor. He mutters out loud about every hand, and in between mutters—and plays—makes a point of eye-digging the cleavage in the red dress next to him.

John, however, has a moment of feeling downright-Sherlock, because he notices that when Nicky isn't ogling red dress, his eyes flit over to the dealer’s trousered-arse. But only ever just for a second. Somehow, it’s on the turn John notices this detail that he gets four of a kind and walks away with eight hundred fifty quid, even after leaving the dealer a handsome tip.

He’s ten steps away when he feels a hand on his shoulder.

It’s Nicky.

John is tempted to say “hands off,” but he instead he says, “How bad did you lose?”

Nicky shrugs, “Fair to middling. I left because I needed a break. A drink with me? I know you have the cash...” He grins at John.

John, to his credit, does not shudder. “Why not?” he agrees, and leads the way to the bar. As he walks ahead, John has the funniest feeling that his backside is now getting an ogling.

At the bar, he switches to Scotch—he did just win more than 800 quid—buying a glass for Nicky, too.

“You look familiar,” he says, examining Nicky with one eye. In fact, when not frowning like a suspension bridge, Nicky does look near-identical to Wesley.

Nicky groans. “Don’t say it.”

“Wesley Fairchild?”

“He’s my brother.”

“No,” John says, slapping the bar in fake-astonishment.

“Embarrassing,” Nicky says. “He’s not even that good. Mediocre player at best. Watch, he’ll get his knee slide-tackled, and then it’ll be over as fast as you can say ACL repair.”

“ACL repairs are quite successful these days,” John says.

“You a doctor?”

“Something like that.” John tips his drink skyward, glugging it down, and wonders if he can make up a new career for this interview. He can be like Sherlock, and he can pretend to act.

“He’s a doctor.”

Or not. John doesn’t have to turn around to know that he’s being babysat by a tall, vampire genius. “Sherlock. Nicky. Nick, Sherlocky.” He flaps his hand back and forth doing the introductions.

 _Apparently_ , John is already half-pissed. He grins into his drink when he realizes he could have called Sherlock Sherry—how funny is that—Sherry?

“I’m bored,” Sherlock announces. “These tables are pathetic.” He steals John’s drink only to find the glass empty. He pushes it toward the barman as he walks by, and says, “Another, and don’t you dare put water in it.”

“The stakes are pretty low here,” Nicky agrees. John doesn’t like the way that Nicky is admiring Sherlock’s cheekbones. Those are John’s cream pie cheekbones.

“Pathetic,” Sherlock repeats.

“I was having a fair time,” John says.

“Well, if your friend is interested,” Nicky says. “I know a place. A place where the bets are more serious.”

John swipes the refilled drink before Sherlock can confiscate it. The expensive smoke of the Scotch doesn’t really help though, because John knows without a doubt that they will be in a gangster-goon-mafia gambling den thingy before the clock hits midnight.

\- - -

The clock strikes midnight, and John sits down at a green table. He fairly certain that he is the only man there who isn’t packing heat. He’s even caught a flash of silver from under Nicky’s sport coat.

Sherlock isn’t playing this hand. “I’d rather observe,” he says, perching himself in the corner with his hands behind his back. But as soon as there’s a break, Sherlock grabs John by the collar and yanks him down the hallway, talking the whole way. “Bruno in the corner shifts in his chair when he’s got a winning hand. He gets nervous, and it gives him gas. Go by the shifting, though—by the time you smell it, it’s too late. The Scouse in the corner is outrageously obvious with his owl eyes when his hand is bad. Oh, and that freckled idiot who splashed the pot the last hand is fucking the dealer—not that the dealer is giving him special cards—but he keeps smirking at her whenever he gets a good hand. He thinks she’s giving him special cards.” Sherlock goes through the rest of them, labelling off what to look for, who is desperate and who is sitting cosy.

“So am I supposed to win or lose?” John asks at the end of it.

“You need to drink,” Sherlock says, and pushes John’s glass to his lips.

“Er, why?”

“Because it lessens your tells. Bruno’s noticed one of them.”

“And just what are my tells?” John waits for it.

“You have a few. Your hands stop trembling when your hand is good. Keep them under the table when you can. You have a slight narrowing of the eyes when you’re happy with the count. You glance over at me when you’re uncertain.”

“Ah, so drinking is the answer?” John asks.

“In your case.”

“So, am I to win or lose?”

Sherlock stares at him before jerking away. “Oh, fuck all. I’m playing this hand.”

...which still doesn’t answer John’s question, but Sherlock goes and takes John’s place at the table. The other players don’t look remotely threatened. If anything, they smile at each other. They think John got scared off.

Oh, how little do they know.

John sits on the stool, drinking himself silly. Sherlock plays light the first few hands, losing nothing or dropping some spare change at most, but then five hands in, Sherlock goes all the fuck in, laying down a full house with three aces. The whole table swears. The pot is at fifteen thousand quid.

Having spent some serious time with soldiers, John can feel the fingers massaging the safeties beneath the breast pockets. Bruno is glaring at Nicky. John realizes that it’s because Nicky is the one who brought them here. They weren’t supposed to be winning; they were supposed to be prey.

And because Sherlock delights in putting fingers on triggers, he stands, says, “I’ll think I’ll use this to visit some Buddhist stupas in the Maldives. What do you say, John?” Sherlock flashes him a smile.

John opens his mouth—he sees the whole table glaring at him. He closes his mouth.

Sherlock hops to his feet, says, “Thank you, gentlemen. Come along, John,” and heads down the hallway. John chases after him. 

Once they’re outside—in a skunk-stinking alley. John rounds on Sherlock. “Are you trying to get us killed?” he demands.

“Killed, no. As for being followed or better yet, abducted...” Sherlock glares at the door impatiently.

“For the love of—” John throws his hands up in the air.

“This isn’t working. We need to look busy or they won’t come after us.”

“Genius.”

Sherlock grabs John’s shoulder, so he can’t leave. With John scowling at him, Sherlock gives him the finger.

John rolls his eyes and tries to shove Sherlock off, but instead, Sherlock steps in closer. Much closer. They’re inches apart. John can see a day’s worth of stubble beneath Sherlock’s chin. But then, Sherlock has to take his hand, the one he’s flipping John off with, and reach down to John’s thigh. John feels three finger nails scratch, through his trousers, just below his hip bone. “So now I’m up to the middle finger?” John asks, throat dry.

“Yes.”

“Are you fucking with me? Is this just about looking busy?”

“I told you. I’m all about the work. I don’t really do relationships.”

“You’ve said.”

“But we’re working...” Sherlock is staring at John’s mouth. He presses his lips together, moistens them. Far down at the end of the alley, there’s the shrill whinge of an ambulance going past. The wind rattles some loose dumpster lids.

John reaches for Sherlock’s hand, the one that’s resting on his thigh. He brings it up to his mouth, and as Sherlock watches, John bites his finger, hard.

“Ow.”

John kisses the bite ring he’s left, and when he looks up, Sherlock’s breathing is soft but rapid as he it beats down on John’s lips. When John runs his hand along the back of Sherlock’s head, urging him closer, Sherlock says, “I’ve never...”

“Been with a—?”

“—no. Kissed anyone. Never saw the point.”

“Do you not want to kiss me?” John asks carefully.

“No—just—can you lead? Sherlock asks. His face is a mask. Other than his breathing, there’s no sign that he’s nervous—but John can tell. He knows.

John leans forward, and Sherlock closes his eyes. John kisses Sherlock slowly. A brush of the bottom lip. A tug on the top. He lets their chins scrape, breathing in Sherlock’s scent with their foreheads pressed together.

But after a minute of this careful softness... Sherlock still hasn’t really moved, really responded, which isn’t Sherlock—Sherlock’s either thinking or he’s doing—which means he’s thinking right now, and goddamn it that isn’t the point.

“Sherlock, kiss me back,” John whispers, and it’s pathetic how desperate he sounds.

Sherlock, eyes still closed, nods, but that’s it. He doesn’t kiss John back.

“Sherlock.”

Sherlock won’t even open his eyes.

Fuck that.

John slams Sherlock, full body, back against the wall. John yanks on Sherlock’s curls. He pulls hard so that Sherlock’s eyes pop open along with his mouth, and that’s when John bites down on Sherlock’s bottom lip. He bites and he licks and fucks Sherlock’s tongue with his own, forceful and crude and with gobs of spit.

Because thinking is not allowed. John doesn’t want Sherlock to think. He wants Sherlock doing. He wants Sherlock doing things to him. It’s why he grabs Sherlock’s arse and grinds his hips until he can feel—

Oh, yes, god—fuck—thank you—yes. Sherlock is hard too.

Sherlock is hard, and he is awkwardly, angelically beautiful, and it’s at this moment, when Sherlock’s eyes are open and he is looking at him like that, that there’s a creak of metal behind them.

“Put your hands where I can see them,” Nicky says.

Fucking Nicky. He’s to be their abductor?

“Or don’t... I was enjoying the show. And Watts, weren’t we the little liar back at the flat? Just how long has this been going on?”

That would be Sean.

“How very interesting,” Sherlock says, but he doesn’t look all that surprised. Nor, though, does he push John away. If anything, John feels a grip on his zip, and Sherlock tugs him closer.

Things don’t seem all that bad. That is, until Sean holds a gun to the back of his head, and says, “Move, and I shoot.”

Sherlock hisses a “fuck,” at something he sees over John’s shoulder.

When John turns to look, he’s met with a cloth over his mouth. A chemical-horrible smelling cloth—but then John can’t smell anymore. He can’t think either.

The alleyway fades away...

\- - -

When John wakes up, Sherlock is ranting at Sean. “Chloroform, really? What? Did you read Nancy Drew when you were a little girl?”

“It was cheap.” Sean is smiling at him.

“So is walking into a hospital and pilfering some laughing gas. And are you not capable of googling ‘Buy Ether’? Or does the phrase cardiac arrhythmia mean nothing to you?”

Sean shrugs, but then he notices John glaring at him. “Look, Watts is awake.”

John is hung over, both from the chloroform and the alcohol. His head pangs and the fluorescent lights are making his eyes water.

“I don’t understand,” John says, wiping at his eyes. “I thought Sean was an American spy.”

“He was,” Sherlock says.

“Then why did he want us to find his boyfriend?”

“He lost him.”

John asks because it will go on longer if he doesn’t. “Let me have it. Was Dr. Black killed by the pipe in the Green Room at the hand of Miss Scarlet or not?”

To his credit, Sean laughs. “Oh, Watts.”

Sherlock, on the other hand, glares at him like he’ll never speak to him again. But then, Sherlock loves an audience for his brain, so he looks at Sean and says, “He was an embedded agent. Unfortunately, he stayed in the bed too long.”

Sean rolls his eyes. “Go on.”

“Three days ago, there was supposed to be a major sting. One of the major drug cartels was supposed to take a heavy hit. Instead, the informant—a man by the name of Nicholas Fairchild—was missing. As was the CIA operative that had “turned” him. But that was all wrong, you see, John, because it was the CIA operative that had been turned—not the informant. That disguise that he was wearing when he met us—that wasn’t just for his boyfriend—that was for the CIA. Sean didn’t want to get caught.”

“Knew from the start, did you?” Sean sneers.

“But you weren’t lying about Nick, were you? He skipped out on you. He hadn’t known he was an informant until you told him the night before. That’s why he broke up with you and ran away, and instead of telling your handlers what had happened—what did you do? You went looking for him.”

“And I found him.”

“By following us.”

“I put a tracker on you!” Sean holds us a small black device and points it at John. A small blinking light is emitted from the device in his hand.

Sherlock frowns at John. “He put it in your while you were staring at the fake tits. They were water balloons by the way, along with some duct tape.”

John covers his face again.

“But you didn’t find that out until now,” Sean says, but he looks uncertain.

This is the point at which Nicky comes into the room. “Hurry up and shoot them,” he says. “I got our plane tickets.”

“Have fun in Bogota,” Sherlock says, looking particularly bored as he brushes a spot of dust off his sleeve cuff.

“You told him?” Nicky demands of Sean.

“He didn't," Sherlock says, "but two of our friends at the table were high and away on the white stuff—not that crap glucose-stuffed Mexican variety you find south of the river these days. You can always tell the Colombian users by how comparatively calm they are. Our friends at the table had a really nice high—no-sugar-added, all thanks to you.” Sherlock stares at Nicky. “I also know that you aren’t really planning on taking Sean with you.”

“Nice try,” Nicky says, rolling his eyes. “Shoot them, Sean.”

“I know because... Ask yourself, Sean, why does he prefer you in a dress? Why did he run away from you in the first place? Why was he at the poker tables when he could have been with you? And why, most importantly, did he only buy a single one-way ticket to Bogota?”

Sean turns the gun from Sherlock to Nicky. “Show me.”

“Sean, you wouldn’t believe him over me.”

“Show me.”

“Shoot them. I bought both tickets.”

“Then show me.”

Nicky says, “We don’t have time for this. I bought them online. We’re on separate flights. We can’t arouse suspicion, and we need to leave now. Shoot them, and let’s go.”

“You’re lying,” Sean says, in a broken voice. “Look at me, so stupid. You’ve been using me all this time. I risked my job for you. I’ve lost my job because of you. I’m a fugitive because of you, and you didn’t even buy me a damn plane ticket.”

“I couldn’t buy you a plane ticket! If they knew you were my boyfriend, they’d shoot me! Why do you think I asked you to wear a dress to all of our meetings? It wasn’t for me—it was to protect you—I—”

Nicky doesn’t get to finish his sentence, however, because a shot rings out.

With a red dot in his head, Nicky flies backwards.

The shot wasn’t from Sean, though. Sean has dropped his own gun. He has one hand over his mouth and the other raised above his head in surrender.

Blue berets fill the room. A few stand over Nick, guns still aimed, while the rest pin Sean to the floor.

John isn’t remotely surprised when Mycroft strides into the room, holding a black object identical to Sean's tracker. “Sherlock, John,” he says greeting them. “Good to see you both safe and sound.”

“And say it, 'Thank you, my dear brother, for solving the problem that your lazy bureaucracy couldn't,'” Sherlock says.

“Like you didn’t enjoy it,” Mycroft scoffs.

“Ah,” John says, as it all dawns on him. “Mycroft knew we were here the whole time. He had a channel on my tracker.”

“It would have been more fun without it,” Sherlock grumbles. “We were thirty seconds from escape."

Mycroft makes some exasperated response, to which Sherlock makes a dismissive joke, but John doesn’t really hear. He looking at Sean, tear-streaked on the floor with his hands cuffed behind his back. Despite everything, Sean’s eyes are still fixed on Nicky. John still isn’t sure what Sean saw in the bastard—but he also isn’t certain that they were thirty seconds from escape.

\- - -

They’re back in the flat when Sherlock gets a text.

“Humph,” he says, with momentary interest, before tossing his phone onto the table.

“Some dull case?” John asks.

“Not a case, a man, but either way, I’m not interested.”

John goes and picks up Sherlock’s phone. There’s a text from “Wesley” asking Sherlock out for “coffee.” John lowers the phone and studies Sherlock. “You’re not interested.”

“Not in the least,” Sherlock says.

“But it’s Wesley Fairchild.”

“Why? Are you interested?”

“Not in the least.”

Sherlock studies him for a moment, before running his fingers along the ridge of the sofa cushion. “I’m bored—maybe we should go play poker?”

John shakes his head. “No, thanks. I’m quite finished with gambling.”

“Then you wouldn’t fancy a little flutter now?”

His tone, the especial coyness of it, gives John pause. “A bet. Now?”

“Why not?” Sherlock says, and hell, he’s giving John that look again.

“What’s in the pot?” John asks. He walks casually over to the sofa. He sets his tea cup down on the coffee table next to Sherlock’s unlaundered shin pads. Looking at them makes John think of Sherlock’s flushed cheeks from that day on the pitch. His cheeks are slightly flushed now.

“Well, I don’t know... Winner’s choice,” Sherlock says. “You can demand I do your laundry... or that I not drive off your next girl friend.”

“My next gir—” John cuts himself off. “Whatever the bet is, I can see it on your face, you think you’ll win.”

Sherlock smiles at him, but it’s a small, whisper of a smile. “I do know all of your tells.”

“But I know yours.”

Sherlock gives him a dubious look. “I don’t have tells.”

John shakes his head at him. “Do, too. So... this bet.”

Sherlock pulls a deck off the counter. Not looking at the cards, he splits and shuffles. “Highest two,” he says and holds out the deck for John to choose.

John takes his pair, and then Sherlock takes his.

“Are we stating our bets?” John asks.

Sherlock looks away. “No, but I’m all in.”

“Me, too,” John says, and then he flips over his cards. He’s holding an ace and an eight. Sherlock has a two and a nine.

“I won.”

“Am I doing laundry then?” Sherlock asks.

This is when John throws his leg over Sherlock’s lap, straddling him. “Maybe,” John says, he runs his hands across Sherlock’s cheekbones, brushes his thumb along his jaw. He scoots forward so that he knows that Sherlock can feel how hard he is. “But what I really want is for you to kiss me back.”

Sherlock looks away, but then he turns back. “You did win,” he says.

“Do you not want to?”

“Shut up,” Sherlock says, and he grabs John’s face, a bit rough even, and pulls their mouths together.

Like before, Sherlock’s breathing is a mess, but in spite of that, he’s kissing John so so so carefully. At first, John wants to urge him on, tell him, “I’m not made of glass,” but then John realizes that this is how Sherlock operates, with trial and error.

It’s just that normally Sherlock does this alone. He sorts through the details from a distance and only comes forward when he’s got the solution in hand. But here he is, testing himself with John.

When his tongue flicks against John’s, John lets out a sigh of approval.

This works. Sherlock does it again, and when John’s tongue presses back, Sherlock opens his mouth slightly, letting his own be pushed back. It’s at this point that John can’t take it anymore. He shifts forward in Sherlock’s lap so that he can grind against the bulge in Sherlock’s trousers. Sherlock’s eyes fly open. For a second, he just stares at John, but then he smiles—that ridiculous smile.

“I thought all you wanted was for me to kiss you back,” he says, but then John pushes their hips again and Sherlock’s eyes flutter shut. His head droops slightly back.

John answers him by sucking on his neck, by sucking and grinding and generally losing his mind at the realization that he’s here—doing this—to Sherlock.

What happens next he doesn’t expect. Sherlock shoves him back on the sofa.

John’s still trying to regain his equilibrium when Sherlock crawls on top of him, pulling John’s mouth back to his, even as all the while he’s aligning their hips together—just so, just like that—and then Sherlock thrusts. A blissful, perfect, athletic thrust.

“I thought you said you’d never... you know, before,” John rasps.

“Kissing is different from two dicks rubbing off in a dark closet.”

John feels a flare of jealousy at the idea of Sherlock being touched by anyone in a dark closet, but then it’s gone just as quick, because Sherlock is arched on his elbows, out of breath, eyes skyward, and gorgeous above him.

When he’s there—when they’re both _there_ —John grabs Sherlock and slips their mouths back together, letting Sherlock’s tongue melt against his as they jerk and tremble and in the end make a mess, mostly on John’s stomach.

Some moments later, when John has a sense of gravity again, he reaches up to brush a sweaty curl off of Sherlock’s forehead. “So laundry?” he teases.

Sherlock cocks a brow at him. “I was thinking another bet.”

“Oh?”

Sherlock stretches over to the table to snatch up a coin. “Heads or tails?” he asks, smiling that smile and placing the coin on the tip of John’s nose.

For this, Sherlock deserves to be ignored. John shoves him off and walks to the bedroom.

Sherlock, being a genius, follows at his heels.


End file.
